Grasslands cover about 40 percent of land ecosystems and support global food security. They feed livestock, shelter pollinators and store carbon amid climate shifts. Preserving native grasslands helps secure food supplies and biodiversity against rising temperatures and altered weather.
Community temporal stability reflects the capacity of grasslands to sustain growth despite environmental variation. Greater plant diversity usually increases stability, as species react differently to climate swings and offset each other’s declines.
Prior experiments on species loss and stability often used random removal designs unlike real-world conditions. Thus the links between diversity and stability are known, yet effects of nonrandom loss from grazing or climate remain unclear.
Researchers at Yokohama National University examined how ordered species removals influence grassland stability and the pathways involved. Their approach differed from earlier work focused mainly on species stability or asynchrony. The study appeared June 29 in the Journal of Ecology.
The team tested four removal sequences based on species abundance, mirroring patterns seen under grazing, climate stress or both. Community stability showed no overall change across sequences. However, the underlying pathways shifted with removal order.
When high-abundance species were removed first, functional diversity fell, lowering species stability and grassland stability. Species asynchrony then became the main stabilizing factor. Removing low-abundance species first left stability largely intact, supported instead by asynchrony and species stability.
The authors note their three-year trial covered limited regions. Further work over longer periods and additional sites is planned to test broader patterns.
